


Benefits of Dementors

by amberflurie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, F/M, Hogwarts Fifth Year, M/M, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:07:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27428410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberflurie/pseuds/amberflurie
Summary: Harry realized Dumbledore had betrayed him and he was not happy. Harry makes a different choice in King's Cross and finds himself back before his fifth year being attacked by dementors."Plans formed in his mind; connections being made quickly. If this time travel was real, he should make the most of it. If he was having a strange dream or he was in hell he should just roll with it anyway."
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Undetermined!
Comments: 71
Kudos: 634





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Obviously I am not JKR and I do not own Harry Potter or its characters. 
> 
> I love time travel fics but I don't often see them where Harry goes back to fifth year so I wanted to write my own. 
> 
> This won't be a bashing story. I think that Dumbledore was generally a good person but was very manipulative and I want this story to reflect that. I'll try not to bash any characters although if I don't particularly like them they won't have a large role in this story.

_“Harry Potter,” he said very softly. His voice might have been part of the spitting fire. “The Boy Who Lived.”_

_Voldemort had raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if her proceeded. Harry looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he could still stand, before he lost control, before he betrayed fear._

_He saw the mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone. (JKR, Deathly Hallows)_

“This is why you didn’t train me, isn’t it? You suspected, after the Chamber was opened, that I would need to die for Voldemort to be vanquished.” Harry said. He stood facing Dumbledore in the white, white, white of King’s Cross. Dumbledore had just finished his story and told him he could go back or go on. Harry could hardly focus on the betrayal that Dumbledore had inflicted on him with the wailing baby under the seat. 

“Harry you had to sacrifice yourself. It was for the good of the Wizarding World. You can go back and defeat Tom now.” Dumbledore implored him. 

Harry laughed, it was a brittle and ugly sound. “I can go back to where my godfather is gone. Where Remus and Tonks have just left my godson an orphan and George has lost his twin. Where my friends and I have been tortured and have run and fought for our lives for the last year. Why should I?”

Dumbledore looked stricken. “What about your friends Harry? They’ve stood beside you for years and you’d just leave them to defeat Tom on their own?”

“Don’t you guilt-trip me, old man! Ron left me and Hermione alone in the forest. And anyway, they know to kill the snake. With me dead, anyone can kill Voldemort.” Harry was just so so tired of fighting and did not want to go back to the dark forest with Voldemort and with every link to his parents being dead. Even Snape was dead. 

“Harry you must go back! What about the prophecy? You must complete it, my boy.” 

“I already have. Neither can live while the other survives. But someone else can kill him now. I’m done. I should have tried harder earlier I should have fought harder, but it’s too late now. I’ve done my part.” Harry looked into Dumbledore’s eyes trying to convey the determination he felt. However, once he declared that he had done his part, Dumbledore began to fade out of existence with a horrified look on his face. Harry watched him, frightened. As mad as he was at the old man, he did not want to stand in this void alone. Soon even the sobbing of the Horcrux-baby was silenced, and Harry was alone. Harry felt like shouting into the emptiness that surrounded him but was afraid of what could come out of the blankness if he disturbed the quiet. He closed his eyes, aching with all of his being because of all of the mistakes he had made. He wished he could go back and – 

Blood roared in his ears as he felt like the floor had been pulled out from under him. His stomach swooped continuously as if he had just missed a step on the stairs. He kept falling, falling falling – 

He slammed into the pavement, his face aching and coldness seeping into his bones as he lay stunned on his back. Harry acted on instinct to the feeling of dementors _am I in hell?_ and grappled for his wand, his desperation causing it to fly to him with wandless magic. He lifted it up and _Sirius at Grimmauld Place pulling him into a hug, dancing with Hermione in the tent, Neville coming out of the portrait towards him_ shouted _“Expecto Patronum”_. His st- 

Wait. His grim Patronus flew out of the end of his Holly wand oh how he had missed his wand and took care of the dementors surrounding him. After they were chased off by his Padfoot Patronus is when he heard the moaning. Harry was stunned to look down further into the tunnel and see Dudley moaning on the ground, trembling and pale. Why was he in the tunnel on Magnolia Crescent with Dudley and dementors? Where was Voldemort? Had Dumbledore somehow forced him to come back to kill him? Did he cause him to come back to another location? 

Harry looked to the other end of the tunnel, where he saw Mrs. Figg just reaching the entrance. Oh no, he thought, have I come back in time? Oh, Merlin how is that possible? 

_Bad things happen to wizards who meddle with time, Harry._ Hermione whispered in his mind.

Through his panic, he heard Mrs. Figg yell, “Don’t put it away, idiot boy.” Harry stared at the wand in his hand and then looked back at Mrs. Figg. 

The next few minutes were a blur as he carted Dudley back to his relatives with Mrs. Figg trailing beside him. Then there was the yelling from his relatives and the letters from the Ministry and from Arthur Weasley. Harry sat there, numb, his brain working to comprehend what was happening to him. He snapped out of his spiral of doom where he had been blankly answering their questions when he heard Petunia say, “They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban.” Harry looked straight at his Aunt when she said this, suddenly registering that she knew _things_ about the wizarding world. 

“How do you know about them?” Harry asked her. 

Aunt Petunia looked like he had just wiped his feet on top of her couch, but she still answered, “I heard that awful boy telling Lily about them.” 

For the first time, Harry realized she wasn’t talking about James Potter. She meant Snape. Plans formed in his mind; connections being made quickly. If this time travel was real, he should make the most of it. If he was having a strange dream or he was in hell he should just roll with it anyway. “What awful boy, Aunt Petunia?” 

Petunia looked gleeful to have some other freak to be vindictive about as she told him, “That Snape boy. Always creeping around in his dirty clothes, following Lily, coming into our home. He was always bad news, from the wrong side of town, he was.”

Harry nodded, more plans forming as she spoke. Everything else happened just as he remembered, Dumbledore’s howler came, Petunia made excuses about him staying, and he retreated back to Dudley’s second bedroom. 

He entered his shabby room, not spotting his faithful friend Hedwig. Maybe he had sent a letter, or she was out hunting. He couldn’t remember at this point. He lay on his bed, staring up at the off-white ceiling of his bedroom, and pondered this latest crazy thing that had happened to him. This chance. He could be his own man this time. He knew what was going to happen, he had years more experience this time. He knew where and what the Horcru-

Oh god. He was going to have to die again. He took deep breaths as this realization rocked his world. Alright, he would have to deal with that later. He could do this. He knew who could be allies to him, and he had _Sirius_ this time, he had someone who cared about him. He could do this. Harry closed his eyes, preparing himself to make more plans in the morning. He had died today and had been awake for hours before that, he could afford to sleep for a bit.


	2. Chapter 2

When he woke up the next morning, Harry was confused to find himself in his room at Privet Drive, fully expecting to take up at Shell Cottage as if the last 48 hours had just been a horrid nightmare. He threw the sheet off of his body since he was sweating profusely – his room was very hot during the summer holidays – and laid there, on his back, considering the multiple courses of action he could take in this time travel hallucination.

He could try to follow the path he had taken last time. If he kept most things the same, he might be able to predict events and prevent a few deaths. He would have to be very careful not to disturb the timeline too much. Could he finish off all of the Horcruxes before Voldemort beckoned him to the Ministry? He could take Voldemort down for good then.

Or he could let the events of fifth-year play out (minus Sirius dying) and only really start to change things the summer before his sixth year. He really did not want him or his friends to go through the war again but without the war, Fudge would stay Minister and the magical world would remain stagnant. He could use the return of Voldemort as a political springboard to try to change things in the government.

Harry lifted his hand to run through his sweaty hair when he felt something…off. Well, the problem was he _didn’t_ feel anything. There was no inflamed and raised scar on his forehead. Harry sprang up and ran to the bathroom (thanking Merlin that Vernon had not seen fit to lock him in his room last night), turning so he faced the mirror. What he saw dumbfounded him.

His scar was faded into a faint pink line, looking like he had had it for years and it had healed over. Harry stared at his face in shock, trying to make his brain work again and figure out how this could have happened. And _how_ would he explain this to Dumbledore? _Ah yes, the Horcrux, hm, well I got rid of it, Headmaster, no need to worry about it anymore, cheers!_ Yes, that would go over well.

While he pondered/panicked over this mystery he got ready for the day, pulling on some of his least objectionable hand-me-downs. He wished he could go out and get new clothing, but he didn’t have any muggle money on him, and Petunia would never give him money for it….

Unless he decided to play up his Slytherin side that had been sadly neglected for several years now. When he was a kid, he could maneuver around any adult he needed to. He had to learn how to, thanks to the Dursley’s loving neglect of his young self. He had tried to mold himself into the hero the magical world desperately wanted – bold and noble and not sneaky in the slightest.

A small smirk grew on his face as he figured out how to get his Aunt to help him with this. Harry quickly left his sweltering room in his baggy jeans and shirt and headed downstairs to quietly help Aunt Petunia cook breakfast. She gave him an odd look when he came down to help without being asked but allowed him to cook the bacon and eggs as he had done so many times before. He stayed in the kitchen, cleaning the dishes, while the Dursleys ate breakfast. It was a weekday, so Vernon went off to work and Dudley went off to terrorize that little ten-year-old Mark Evans and other kids in the neighborhood. And they called him a delinquent.

After the two larger humans left the house, Harry took a deep breath, trying to call on that infuriating serene calm that always surrounded Albus Dumbledore. “Aunt Petunia?” he asked in a level tone.

She spun around from where she was writing something at the kitchen table and asked, “What, boy, what do you want?”

“Well…I heard some of the neighbors talking while I was out walking yesterday and….” Harry trailed off, watching as his Aunt’s face took on her familiar I-smell-blood-in-the-water gossiping face.

“Yes, what, boy, what did you hear?” she demanded.

“They were talking about…Uncle Vernon, actually Aunt Petunia. They said that he must not make much money since I was always wearing Dudley’s clothes that didn’t fit me and that he must have been demoted at the company….”

Aunt Petunia’s face paled dramatically as she thought about the other wives talking badly about her Vernon but she rallied herself quickly. “So, what do you want me to do about that? You pay for all of your school things, don’t you? Buy yourself some clothes.”

“Well, you see Aunt Petunia, I don’t have any mu- er, normal people money with me. I could get some later but then people in that world would see me and they might follow me back here.” Harry said.

And there it was. Petunia’s sour lemon face. She snarled at him when he said that, but she reached for her pocketbook anyway, digging out the large amounts of pounds she apparently kept in there. “You’re going to pay me back boy. And tell me if you hear anyone else talking badly about Vernon, you hear me?”

Harry nodded deferentially, “Yes, of course, Aunt Petunia!” He took the money she gave him before dashing up to his room to grab his invisibility cloak and shove his wand into his pocket. He hoped Mad-Eye wasn’t on guard duty since he could see through the cloak with that eye of his. He snuck out the back door of the house so that the door would not be seen opening and threw the invisibility cloak over his head. He edged around the side of the house and walked slowly out onto the sidewalk. No one came out to yell at him so far….

Just as he thought he was home free, he tripped over something by the trash bins, going sprawling onto the pavement. It was pure luck that he remained covered by the cloak. He looked back to see what he had tripped over and saw the disembodied head of Mundungus Fletcher lying there. He must have pulled the invisibility cloak off his head when he tripped. Mundungus was clearly intoxicated again and did not even wake up with the kick to the face he had been given by the tripping.

_Those morons,_ Harry thought, _he literally just abandoned his post yesterday. Why did they send him back here?_ He decided to think about this later and to thank his lucky stars for now. He headed to the closest bus station, hoping to catch one to the nearest shopping center. He remembered the letter telling him not to leave the house but honestly, what the Order didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

Xxx

Harry got back from his shopping extravaganza with a lot of new clothes, a haircut, and a girl’s number in his pocket. He felt better than he had in _weeks._ Sure, Voldemort was out there, but he was laying low right now and it was refreshing not to be 100% on his guard. And to have _real clothes_ that actually fit him so that he didn’t look like he was drowning in grey rags. He would have to convince someone in the Order to let him go get robes before his hearing… maybe Tonks would take him…

Harry meandered back to 4 Privet Drive from the bus station. He stopped at an overpass and threw his invisibility cloak over himself. It was much more difficult to use now that he had shopping bags that he couldn’t shrink but he somehow managed. No Order member jumped out to yell at him when he got back to his street, so he seemed to be in the clear. Just to be safe, he sneaked back around the house and entered through the back door again, before heading up to his cell and dropping all of his bags. He lay back on his bed, exhausted.

He had noticed throughout the day that his head seemed remarkably clear. Apparently, without the link to Voldemort, he could keep his thoughts more stable and he wasn’t as prone to flying off the handle. That would be very beneficial when dealing with Umbridge. Had the Horcrux been making his brain fuzzy? It seemed to have been amplifying his negative emotions, never allowing him to calm down. No wonder Tom was so absolutely insane now, cutting your soul into pieces or harboring a small piece caused very terrible things to happen to you. It was a relief to be alone in his mind and to be able to think clearly for once.

Xxx

For the next few days, Harry stayed in his room and out of the way of the Dursleys. When he did run into them for food or in the hallway, he again adapted his Dumbledorian serenity which seemed to unnerve them. While he was stuck at Privet Drive, he took everything out of his trunk to make room for his new clothes. Apparently, he had not cleaned out his trunk before because the bottom was covered in detritus – broken quills, parchment scraps, candy wrappers. A graveyard of essays also greeted him at the bottom. He took his time emptying out the trash and useless things and reloaded the truck with his new clothes and everything he still needed. The rest of his time he spent skimming through fourth-year books and letters from the current summer. He wanted to refresh his mind so that he didn’t blurt out sixth-year spells or talk about a dream from Voldemort he hadn’t had yet.

When the Order came to get him on the fourth night after the dementor attack, he was ready. His relatives had left the house for their Suburban Lawn Competition and he lay in his bed, trunk packed, twirling his wand like a teenage Tom Riddle. (He hated Voldemort, but damn was he suave and charming at that age). He heard the crash from the kitchen, just like last time.

Harry lifted himself quietly to his feet and stepped towards his door. He slowly turned the knob, letting the latch quietly open. He crept down the hallway towards the stairs while trying to mimic Snape’s silent gliding. He stepped down the stairs, avoiding the fifth one because it squeaked, and made his way quietly to the kitchen. He moved to stand behind Tonks, raised his wand, and loudly said “Who the hell are you people?”

The Order whirled around, wands out in a flash, as they turned to find the source of his voice. Their faces registered their shock when they saw that a 15-year-old boy had snuck up behind them.

“Aye lad, we’ve come to take you away from here” Mad-Eye Moody growled out, his fake eye spinning wildly.

“Moody?” he asked, trying to convey shock, “What are you doing here?”

“Dumbledore asked us to come and get you.”

“Hello, Harry,” Lupin said from next to Moody, “it’s alright, you can put your wand away.”

Harry gave Remus a wry grin, “What did you have in your office the first time I came for tea?”

Mad-Eye looked approving at this course of action. Lupin responded with a sad smile, “A grindylow.”

“Yes, now ask Potter something only he would know. I’m not bringing a death eater in disguise back to headquarters” Moody said.

“What did I say when you told me that your boggart was a dementor?” Remus asked him.

“That fearing fear itself was very wise of me.”

Harry and Remus both lowered their wands and then Harry shocked him by crossing the kitchen and hugging him tightly. “Hello, Moony,” he whispered in Remus’s ear. He felt Lupin tense initially and then hug him back just as tightly.

“Hello, Little Prongs,” he whispered back.

“Yes, yes, this is all very nice, but we have to get a move on Lupin! Are you all packed Potter?” Moody asked.

Harry nodded and turned to head upstairs and get his things. Tonks came with him like she did last time and helped him to carry his trunk back down the stairs. She went down first and Harry stared at her pink hair from above. He had grown his hair back when his Aunt had practically shaved his head as a kid...did he have some metamorphagus talent? He shook his head to focus on the current moment, planning to think on that more later.

When he got back downstairs, the others quickly introduced themselves as they had last time. There was Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Elphias Doge, Dedalus Diggle, Emmeline Vance, Sturgis Podmore, and Hestia Jones. Just as before, Mad-Eye disillusioned him, and they all took off on brooms to fly to London. Harry remembered the last time he had flown with the Order and he couldn’t stop himself from glancing over at Moody frequently to ensure he was still alive. The whole journey was spent with him keeping a white-knuckled grip on his broom as he fought to remind himself of the here and now. He was glad he was disillusioned so no one could see his facial expressions as he fought to keep himself calm.

Finally, they landed in a small square. Harry was only vaguely surprised that he could still see through the Fidelius, which brought about all sorts of interesting theories like whether the Fidelius was linked to your soul and he had brought the secret back with him….

Anyway, he pretended to be suitably shocked when he was shown the secret and he was led into Number 12 Grimmauld Place. It was dirtier than he remembered, the dust swirling in the air of the entryway. But there was something there that he hadn’t felt last time, something he had only started to sense in the last year on the run. Magic. It permeated every room in the house. The dark magic of the Blacks lived and breathed in every niche. It wasn’t as strong as it should be, he thought, it had been neglected for years since Walburga died and Kreacher had not done his duties since then. But it was there, and his shoulders relaxed subconsciously when he was once again breathing in magic.

And then Molly Weasley was there and suffocating him and exclaiming how good it was to see him. When Mrs. Weasley tried to hold him back from following the others into the meeting, he ducked under her arm and strode towards the kitchen door. He pushed it open after the others had gone through, his eyes searching the room quickly and –

There he was. _Sirius._ He didn’t realize he had breathed his name out loud until Sirius looked up and his eyes found him standing across the room. He stood from his chair quickly, wood scratching, and rounded the table quickly, pulling him into a warm hug.

“Harry,” he said, “you’re here.” He pulled back to look at him, peering into his eyes. “I’ve missed you so much, Bambi.”

Harry didn’t care if Sirius had just called him after a child’s woodland animal because he was here and living and breathing and _alive._ Harry smiled so hard he felt his cheeks ache and hugged Sirius again.

He heard someone clear their throat from over his shoulder and glanced back to see Molly Weasley, hands on her hips. “Your friends are upstairs Harry, you should go see them,” she told him while glaring at Sirius.

Harry turned, Sirius, keeping his arm around his shoulders, and faced Mrs. Weasley. He again reached for the calm he had unnerved the Dursley’s with. “I’d like to know what is going on first, Mrs. Weasley. I haven’t heard anything for weeks since I was left at my relatives' house,” he told her.

“Harry, my boy, there’s no need to worry, you can go see your friends.”

Ah. Harry knew that voice. He turned from Mrs. Weasley to see Dumbledore twinkling his eyes at the head of the table. Of course, he didn’t look Harry in the eyes. He did, however, look at his forehead. And Harry got the pleasure of seeing Albus Dumbledore be utterly and completely shocked.


	3. Chapter 3

Albus Dumbledore sat at the table, mouth agape, for a good few seconds. In that time, the other members of the Order began to look back and forth between Harry and the Headmaster, trying to determine what was happening. Dumbledore visibly gathered himself and tried to maintain his usual unflappableness.

“Mr. Potter, “he said in a rare show of formality, but with sharpness coating his tongue, “what happened to your scar?”

Harry was surprised that Dumbledore wanted to have this conversation now, in front of everyone, but who was he to deny him? “Ah, that. It just disappeared after the dementor attack. I have no idea what happened.” He said this all while staring at the rim of Dumbledore’s gold eyeglasses since he did not fully trust his very rudimentary occlumency. He tried to portray innocent confusion in this assertion.

Dumbledore was obviously not sure whether to believe him. His bushy white brows furrowed in the middle of his forehead as he contemplated whether a soul could be selectively sucked out with no apparent damage to his body. He still wasn’t meeting his eyes though…Oh. Dumbledore was trying to decide if it was really him or if it was Tom Riddle’s soul in his body. Time for damage control.

Harry made himself look vaguely panicked, “Do you know what could have happened, sir? I mean the dementors did get really close to me this time, but I didn’t know they could remove a curse scar.” He made sure to inflect his voice with appropriate deference and just a dash of hero worship that Tom Riddle would never have been capable of even faking towards the old man.

He could see the Headmaster’s shoulders un-tense slightly, but his eye-twinkle was still absent. “Ah, unfortunately, I do not know, my boy. I will look into it after this meeting. Why don’t you go up and meet with your friends, Harry?”

Harry knew he would have to fight to be included in the Order and he really did not want to do so right now, but he was worried if he capitulated to the adults’ wishes for him to leave right now his arguments would not make as much impact later. Molly wouldn’t be able to get as riled up with all the adults currently there. Harry took a deep breath, “Actually, Headmaster, I think I should be included in the meeting.”

There were instant protests to this suggestion. Snape snorted from where he lurked in the corner behind the Headmaster. Mrs. Weasley started yelling about him being a child. Other adults protested that he was too young. Sirius’s arm tightened from where it was still slung across his shoulders. And so on. But Harry kept his eyes on Dumbledore, who was clearly trying to figure out why he was being so level-headed.

“You’re too young, Harry,” he said while looking over his glasses at him, “you cannot be in the Order until you are of age.”

Harry tried to bite back all of his hypocritical retorts about how he should not be tested in first-year obstacle courses until he was of age either if they were going that route. “I think I have more than proved myself, Professor. I’ve faced Voldemort several times. When I was 15 months old, twice in my first year, once in my second, and once a few months ago when he came back. I was the reason a man died in my first year and I was the reason a boy died a few months ago. I may not be of age, but I have seen more than a lot of adults have. I have never had the _privilege_ of being a child, my relatives and Voldemort saw to that. All I request is that I be allowed into Order meetings and to be given information. I am not asking to fight, although I would not turn down extra training, since we all know he is going to be coming after me. I think I have earned the right to know what is being done to defeat the man who murdered my parents. I will not waste my mum’s sacrifice by floundering around, uninformed.”

Harry knew that the last part was sort of underhanded. He knew he could get Snape to vote for his inclusion with that. Snape may loathe his very being, but he would do anything to honor Lily’s sacrifice. And other older members of the Order knew Lily as well and he hoped they would also be similarly moved. Others like Shacklebolt and Moody he was hoping to convince with the logic of his arguments. Sirius and Remus were kind of wildcards. Last time around, Sirius was happy to keep him informed but had been cowed a bit by Molly Weasley. Remus believed he should be informed of some information last time and Harry was hoping that was still true.

“You’re just a boy, Harry,” said Mrs. Weasley, with tears in her eyes. She was surprisingly more composed than he was expecting. It might have been because of the iron grip that Arthur had her hand in on top of the table.

He gave her a sad smile, “I’m not though. I wish I could be, but it’s just not in the cards for me. I promise I will not reveal any information to my friends unless it is a life or death situation, however. I understand you want to protect your kids.”

“We’ve always thought of you as one of our kids as well, Harry, we can’t allow you to know these things,” said Molly.

Apparently, Sirius had some balls after all. “It’s not your decision to make, Molly. Harry is my godson and I think he’s proven to have a good head on his shoulders. I think he should be informed.”

“You can’t treat him like an adult! He’s NOT James, Sirius!” she yelled at him.

Sirius took a deep breath and blew it out through his nose noisily. “I know that. But he isn’t a kid anymore. And James and Lily aren’t here but they wanted me to take care of him if they weren’t and I am going to do that.”

Harry’s heart warmed at these words, but the happiness was not to be.

“Ah, yes, fine job you’ve been doing, leaving him alone all these years.” Mrs. Weasley said, snidely.

“That’s enough!” Dumbledore slammed his palm down onto the table. “We will not argue this anymore. Harry, you cannot know this information, you’re too young.”

“Oh, let the brat stay, Albus.”

Everyone turned as one, eyebrows raised, to the dark corner where Severus Snape sat scowling at all of them. He continued speaking. “Potter will just go on another misadventure with his friends if we don’t keep him somewhat informed and will endanger the other idiots.”

Harry had never heard Snape say anything remotely in his favor before. Well, he was rather indignant when finding out he had been raised to be a martyr, but he hadn’t expected a show of support to join the Order. He met Snape’s burning gaze and nodded his head in gratitude, just a bit. Snape looked sullen at that but returned the gesture with an infinitesimal nod.

“Aye just let the boy stay, Albus. He snuck up behind all of us at Privet Drive and could have cursed Tonks before she even got her wand out,” said Moody, cackling a bit. Tonks looked abashed at this reminder.

“Alastor is right, Headmaster, the boy seems to be mature enough to know what’s going on,” Shacklebolt added in his two knuts.

Dumbledore looked rather thoughtful at their words. “Alright, Harry. You can stay for now.”

Mrs. Weasley looked mutinous, but Mr. Weasley restrained her with a gentle hand on her arm. Harry was sure she would try to reason with him later.

Harry nodded his head in thanks in the direction of Moody and Shacklebolt and then took a seat at the table in-between Sirius and Remus. After all of this excitement, Dumbledore decided to start the meeting. Various members reported on what they had been doing.

“The werewolves are not interested in fighting with us. The most we can hope for is neutrality,” Remus said while fiddling with his teacup.

“Why don’t they want to fight with us? Surely, they don’t want to follow Voldemort,” said Emmeline Vance.

Remus looked nervous, so Harry cut in, “They’ve been oppressed for too long. People like Delores Umbridge have been passing laws and persecuting them for decades, so they have no faith in the Ministry. Voldemort offers them an alternative by telling them that if he wins, they will have an equal place in his society. Which is obviously untrue, but some werewolves see it as worth a shot to not be degraded and impoverished and hunted.” Harry glanced at Lupin after he finished talking and found him looking grateful but surprised that Harry understood the werewolves’ plight so well. The other Order members also looked surprised that he knew so much.

“Well, we will just have to keep trying,” Dumbledore said while looking intently at Harry.

“You’re wasting your time by using someone as intelligent as Remus on what is essentially a pointless mission. The werewolf packs will not want to listen to someone who carries a wand and is Hogwarts-educated.”

“Harry is right,” Remus added, looking upset, “they don’t want to listen to me. They see me as a traitor for working with wizards and living amongst them.”

“If you want to take them out of the war so that they cannot fight against us, you would have to actually give them an incentive that they could have more rights if we win,” Harry said.

Dumbledore was starting to look a little annoyed. “Ah, yes, you may be right, my boy. We can discuss that later. How about you Severus, anything to report?”

Snape rolled his eyes at Dumbledore’s non sequitur but responded anyway. “The Dark Lord has been laying low. He is trying to quietly recruit while the Ministry is denying his return. I have been tasked with brewing potions for him since that idiot, Pettigrew is a terrible potions brewer so his body is not as strong as it should have been.”

Harry was amused, “And you’re oh so nicely not making them at full strength, right?”

Snape was clearly annoyed Harry was talking but there was also an amused glint in his black eyes when he looked at him and for a second, they had a shared understanding. For a second.

“Yes, thank you, Severus,” said Dumbledore. And so, on the meeting continued. The Aurors were reporting what they could from the Ministry, but they didn’t know much. They were trying to feel out who was sympathetic and may be swayed to join them. Meanwhile, Fudge was trying to defund the department.

After all of the reports were given, Dumbledore wrapped up the meeting with more general assignments that were not really helping anyone. But Harry didn’t want to say anything yet. He had to curb his impulsiveness, garner support, be patient before making moves. He had only been back in this time for a few days and he had time to make some plans before people started dying. Harry stayed seated at the table while the other members who were not staying for dinner headed out. The meeting definitely could have gone worse and he had achieved his goal of being invited into the Order.

“So how has your summer been, pup?” Sirius asked him.

“It’s been difficult,” Harry answered honestly, drawing from his original experiences of this summer. “It was awful being stuck at the Dursleys with no news. And then with the dementors and everything...” he trailed off.

Sirius and Remus both grimaced when he mentioned the dementors.

“Yeah, Dumbledore was furious at Mundungus,” Remus said.

“KIDS! DINNER!” Molly yelled from where she was setting platters on the table. There was soon pounding on the stairs and a cracking sound from Fred and George apparating in. When all of the kids saw Harry, there was clamoring to reach him. Hermione reached him first and hugged him tightly, soon followed by the twins who hugged the both of them together and pretended to cry with happiness that he was there. Harry extricated himself from the hug, laughing at their antics.

“Hey guys,” he said with a smile. Following that was an interrogation of him during dinner about when he got there and how was his summer and so on. Harry basked in the warmth of having everyone together again, alive and relatively healthy. It was a wonderful feeling and he was going to do everything he could to protect it this time around.


	4. Chapter 4

But the warmth of dinner could not last. Harry had been so happy to see everyone alive and happy and untouched by war that he had let himself forget about the betrayals. He trooped up the stairs with the rest of the kids and went into his and Ron’s room with Hermione. When they were all inside, Harry turned to face them. “So. This is where you’ve all been this summer.”

“Well I haven’t been here that long…” Hermione said.

“And none of you thought to contact me or give me any information whatsoever? I was alone at the Dursleys after watching Cedric die and seeing my mortal enemy resurrected with my blood. And my friends abandoned me.”

“Dumbledore told us not to write you, mate.” Ron said, his face red.

“Well fuck what Dumbledore said. Since when do we all follow the rules?” Harry shot back, voice starting to rise. He had to stop and take deep breaths to keep himself from full on yelling like he had in the original timeline.

“He told us it was unsafe to write, Harry!” Hermione said, her eyes tearing up a bit at his anger.

“So? First of all, why didn’t you call me while you were at home with your parents Hermione? You both left me alone, don’t deny it.”

Hermione had started crying in earnest now, but Ron looked like he was about to explode.

“Hey mate, back off! We were just doing what Dumbledore told us to do!” Ron yelled at him.

“Right. What Dumbledore told you to do. Well, when you decide to think for yourselves, come find me.” And before either of them could respond, Harry walked out of the room to go find Sirius.

He walked up the stairs leading up to the next floor and found the room he remembered being plastered in posters of half-naked women and knocked. After a moment, Sirius peeked out from the crack in the door, “Harry?” he asked.

“Are you hiding something in there, Sirius?” Harry questioned with a raised eyebrow. His other eyebrow joined the first when Sirius flushed a Weasley red. He seemed to bolster himself before cracking the door open more and pulling him inside quickly, surprising Harry. Inside the room was Remus Lupin, under the covers of his bed, looking just as shocked as Harry was sure he did. It took a few moments for Harry’s brain to process what he was looking at. He kept getting stuck on the thought of Teddy Lupin…

Oh god. That’s why Remus was so against being with Tonks right away. He must have been heartbroken that his best friend and lover had just died. Harry felt a rush of sympathy for the two men who had hidden their relationship and who had been separated after just being reunited.

“Ah. I seem to remember Sirius being referred to as a lady’s man when he was young…” Harry said to Remus. Sirius’s blush returned full force at this while Remus snorted from his position on the bed, looking grateful he had not started yelling at them.

“We got together after Hogwarts actually,” said Sirius, sitting down on the end of his bed and trying not to look nervous.

Harry nodded, before throwing himself in the chair at Sirius’s desk. “So why didn’t you guys tell me?” He would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little hurt that they had never felt they could confide in him.

“We didn’t want to lose you Harry. Not everyone is alright with two men being together, especially with one of us being a werewolf. We didn’t want to risk it.” Remus said.

“Moony. I’ll always love you guys, no matter what. I think it’s great you two have this cute little relationship.” Harry teased. This time both Remus and Sirius blushed, and Harry laughed.

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you Little Prongs,” Sirius said sheepishly, “but thank you for understanding.”

Harry’s heart hurt at how pathetically grateful and relieved they both looked so he turned the conversation to what he had really come for. “So anyway, Siri, I was wondering if there’s another room I could stay in? I’m kinda not happy with Ron and Hermione right now.”

Sirius looked concerned, “What happened, you were fine at dinner?”

“Yeah, well I didn’t want to make a scene. But they didn’t write to me about anything this summer and just abandoned me. And Ron abandoned me last year too during the tournament. I just think I deserve more than that…”

The black-haired man jumped up from his bed to give him a hug, “Of course you do, Harry! You can stay in Regulus’s room, as long as you don’t mind a ton of green and silver. Then you’ll be right next door to me and Moony,” he finished excitedly, bouncing a little on his feet.

“I’m not sure if I want to hear werewolf mating all night, Padfoot…” Harry got hit with a pillow from Moony at that and he started laughing. Sirius growled playfully before pulling him out of the room and opening the next door – ­R.A.B. After teasing the two of them a bit more, he said goodnight to his pseudo uncles and entered Regulus’s room. He was too tired to explore it more now, so he took off his jeans and laid down under the covers, thanking Kreacher for at least cleaning one room of the house, before falling asleep.

Xxx

When Harry awoke the next morning, it was to something dripping onto his face. He cracked one eyelid open just to see Padfoot in dog form slobbering and panting over his head.

“Ugh, gross, Padfoot! Moony! Come get your dog!” he yelled out. Remus came running into the room at the sound of his yells, wand out, half-naked, and hair sticking up every which way. When he saw Sirius licking Harry’s face he started laughing, quickly joined by a human Sirius.

“Thanks guys,” Harry said, “really appreciate the wake-up call.” Sirius and Remus eventually succeeded in getting themselves under control and both smiled at him.

“I have 14 years of Padfoot wake ups to impart to you, Harry. Better get used to it.” Sirius said in a sing-song voice.

Harry glared but still leveraged himself upright and stepped out of bed. “I can hardly wait, Padfoot. Now do either of you have clothes I could use so I do not have to go down to my trunk in Ron’s room right now?”

Sirius looked contemplative for a moment. “You know, I you’re about the same size as my brother Reg was,” here, a flicker of pain flashed across his face, “you could take what you want from his closet. Wizarding fashion hasn’t really changed much in the last 15 years.”

Harry smiled at him gratefully, “That would be great, Sirius, but I don’t want to take your brothers clothes if you’re uncomfortable with it….”

“Nonsense, they’re just sitting here gathering dust. Here- “and with that, Sirius flung open the doors to Regulus’s wardrobe to show him.

“Thanks, Padfoot. I really appreciate it. Now get out so I can change without two dogs watching me.”

“Hey!”

And with that, Sirius was dragged out of the room by a bemused Remus and Harry turned to look at the wardrobe. That had been easier than he thought it would be to get wizarding clothes. Sirius was right when he said wizarding fashion hadn’t changed much and he could get away with wearing any of the robes in Regulus Black’s closet and still look fashionable and rich. They would be perfect for his hearing. But for now, he dug out a pair of black jeans that Regulus must have hidden from his mother and a black button down to wear on top. After a shower in the bathroom that had snake themed faucets, he put on the clothes and attempted to tame down his black hair. He could afford to change his hairstyle a bit now since the scar was healing and was not as prominent. His hair did not need to be permanently flattened down on top of it. After getting ready, Harry bounded down the rest of the stairs to the kitchen where Sirius, Remus, Tonks, and Shacklebolt were eating what Mrs. Weasley was obsessively making.

“Hello Tonks, Shacklebolt,” he said with a nod to each of them as he sat down. Shacklebolt nodded his head back but Tonks lit up at his appearance.

“Wotcher Harry! Why are you up so early?” she asked.

Harry smiled wryly, “I’ve always gotten up early, my relatives never really let me sleep in so it’s just habit now.” Harry saw Sirius and Remus both exchange a look that they thought he didn’t see at that, but he let it go for now. “So, what are you up to today?”

“King and I both have to go into work today, I just stopped by to have a free breakfast and he had something to drop off for Dumbledore.” Tonks told him.

“Ah, yes, Mrs. Weasley’s cooking is hard to pass up.” Harry responded. The five of them chatted over tea and breakfast before the two Aurors had to get up to leave for work. When they stood up, Harry had a sudden idea.

“Wait, Tonks, Shacklebolt! Do you think one of you could take a letter to Amelia Bones for me? I could give it to you tomorrow.” He asked them.

They both looked surprised at his sudden question, but Shacklebolt nodded his bald head. “I could. I’d just need a reason why I had it.”

“I’ll get back to you tomorrow morning since there is no meeting tonight. Thank you,” Harry said with a nod to them both. With that, both Aurors left, thankfully through the floo so Tonks could not disturb Walburga’s portrait.

“What was that about, cub?” Remus asked curiously.

Harry smiled mysteriously. “You’ll see.”

Both the marauders looked very interested at that, but they could not question him further since Mrs. Weasley had yelled and gone to wake up the rest of the kids to come down for breakfast before making them clean. The twins, of course, apparated directly into the kitchen, making their mother yell at them for using magic willy-nilly. The twins took seats across from Harry, Sirius, and Remus at the end of the table.

“How are you this morning old chaps!” said Fred.

“This delightful morning filled with the wonderful sounds- “said George.

“-of our mother’s beautiful yelling.”

“Just lovely Gred, Forge. How is the business going?” Harry asked, smirking.

Fred and George looked nervously at Remus and Sirius, but the two marauders seemed more confused than anything else.

“Don’t worry,” Harry said, “these two marauders would love your business idea.” And with that he leaned back in his chair to watch the show. Fred and George turned as one to gape at the two older men.

“The marauders? You don’t mean….”

“Moony, Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail?”

“Those marauders? The kings of pranking?”

“The most devious of the devious?”

“The best of the best?”

“Our idols?”

“Our heros?”

Fred turned to glare at Harry. “How long have you known these two pranking geniuses have been here and did not tell us?”

Harry looked nervously between the twins. “Remember you shouldn’t prank your investor…”

“Wait how do you know about the marauders?” asked Sirius with a tilt to his head.

“We found your map in our first year!” said George. “We gave it to Harry when he was an ickle third year, but he never told us he KNEW you!”

“Knew us!” snorted Remus, “He’s the son of Prongs.”

Fred and George turned back to stare, open-mouthed at Harry. After a moment, each twin reached out to tap the other’s chin and close their mouths. “We will be discussing this more later Mr. Potter.” George said.

“Yes, my dear Harrykins, we will discuss this later.” Fred added in. Harry sunk down in his chair at the mischievous gaze of the twins.

“So anyway. Tell us everything. It seems dear Harry did not tell you, but we have recently come into some money and are working on inventions for our future joke shop and would love to have the expertise of two legendary men to help us.” George said with a more serious face than usual.

“Wait!” Harry sat up straighter in his chair, “What if the four of you worked together? Do you think you could come up with things to help us in the war? Distractions or pranks to play on death eaters?” he asked the four of them.

All four men joined in him in sitting up straighter in their chairs. Sirius was almost bouncing out of his seat as well as the twins and even Remus looked intrigued.

“Oh Harry,” said Fred, “you don’t know what you’ve done.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Yes I know Tonks’s age is a bit off, she should be a year older. But for story purposes, I am going to make her a seventh year when Harry was a first year.

After a harrowing breakfast, where the twins and the remaining marauders shot ideas back and forth and Harry wondered if he had created an unholy alliance, he was pushed upstairs with the other children to clean the drawing-room. The spraying of the doxies was just as miserable as the first time and Harry waited anxiously to get closer to the locket in the cabinets by the mantle. He forgot that they had sprayed doxies all morning the first time and that they only reached the cabinets after lunch. He made a game of the spraying with Fred, George, and Sirius that made Mrs. Weasley red-faced with irritation. It involved spraying in different patterns and throwing doxies at each other. Molly did not like it.

Harry inhaled his sandwich at lunch and tapped his foot impatiently, waiting to get into the cabinets. When it was finally time, he took a moment to examine the contents and he could not believe he had not examined them before. Had the Horcrux made him blind and dumb?

There were old daggers, slightly rusted but durable and probably coated in poisons. There was a coiled snakeskin that must be rare if it was sitting there and probably very useful in potions. The same for the small vial of what was probably blood from a rare creature and the claws. The little boxes were still inscribed with languages he did not know but he was itching to see them closer.

Mrs. Weasley started throwing things into bags, and Harry panicked, “Wait!” he yelled, and everyone froze where they stood, thinking some disaster had befallen them.

“Those are probably useful potions ingredients…the blood, and the claws and stuff…don’t you think we should save them for Snape if he’s in the Order?” he finished, weakly. _Oh, nice going Harry, they’re all gonna think you’re touched in the head doing something nice for Snape_. Sirius looked like Harry had just clubbed him over the head.

“Oh, Harry dear, I didn’t think of that! Of course, I’ll ask Severus, we can just leave those be.” Mrs. Weasley said as she bustled around. Everyone else shook out of their surprised stupors but did not stop examining Harry.

“Harry, why are you giving things to Snivellus?” Sirius asked him. All of the Weasley children laughed when they heard this name and Harry felt dread curl in his stomach that they might spread it around.

“Don’t use that name, Siri.” Harry glared at him, and then looked away. “It’s my OWL year and I need to get into NEWT potions, I need to be nicer to the man.”

“Oh, Harry, that’s a brilliant idea!” Hermione squealed, making Harry grimace at her enthusiasm. He wasn’t actively mad at Hermione and Ron, it had been too long since his real fifth year, but he did feel separate from them now. They were not the ones who fought Death Eaters with him and followed him to war. They were just school children.

They continued clearing out the cabinets, and eventually, they got to the locket that no one could open. Harry waited impatiently for it to be passed to him. He had considered his course of action for the locket and had decided to expose some of his new magic sensing ability. He reached out as Ginny handed it off to him and gave a startled yelp as it came to rest in his palm. He felt Voldemort’s dark insidious magic curling up his arm and invading his heart, making it heavier. He dropped the locket quickly and yelled, “Everyone stay back!”

“Harry! What is it?” Sirius asked, edging towards him.

Harry turned to him with a grim look that he didn’t have to fake. “That locket feels like Voldemort’s magic in that diary from second year. Don’t touch it.”

Everyone in the room paled and stepped back further from the locket. Ginny looked like she might be sick.

“I’ll call the Headmaster,” Mrs. Weasley said. Harry had expected her to say this and decided he might as well let it happen. He did not like that he was raised to die but he understood Dumbledore’s motives, and he trusted him to do anything he could to get rid of Tom. Mrs. Weasley hustled out of the room to go Floo call the Headmaster.

“Everyone else should leave,” Harry said seriously, “This isn’t magic you should all be exposed to. I already have been, I’ll be fine.”

Everyone tried to argue with him, but eventually, Molly came back and pushed all of her children and Hermione out of the room. She tried to get Harry to leave as well but he refused to back down.

“Sirius is here, Mrs. Weasley, I’ll be fine,” Harry said. She drew a deep breath, getting herself ready for another argument but at that moment Albus Dumbledore glided into the room in all his glory, his eyes taking in everything quickly. He saw the locket on the floor in front of Harry, and he paled a bit in shock. Harry realized he must have already seen it in a memory.

“I’ll take it from here, Molly, thank you,” he said. Mrs. Weasley huffed but listened to his authority and left the drawing-room.

Dumbledore met Harry’s serious gaze and asked, “Do you know that that is, Harry?”

“No, sir, but it feels just like the diary,” he answered, honestly.

The Headmaster’s eyes widened, “You can feel the magic?”

_Time to lie a bit._ “I’ve been feeling magic more and more for the last year, Voldemort’s is very strong,” he said.

“Yes, Tom always had a unique magic…” Dumbledore trailed off, levitating the locket up into the air and examining it.

“What is it, sir?” Harry asked innocently.

“A very dark piece of magic, my boy. Very dark, indeed. I wonder – how did it get into this house at all?”

“We could ask Kreacher,” Harry tried to suggest nonchalantly, “he probably knows about all of the objects in this house.”

“Yes, my boy, I think you’re right, could you call him for us, Sirius?” Dumbledore said.

Sirius looked at both of them like they were crazy but acquiesced to the Headmaster’s request. “KREACHER!” he yelled. Kreacher appeared with a pop in his dirty pillowcase in front of them, already muttering. He stopped muttering quickly though and instead started grasping at the locket that Dumbledore had levitating like a madman.

“He has Master Regulus’s locket he does! Kreacher must get it back! Kreacher must, must, must - “

“Hello, Kreacher,” Harry interrupted, “Can you tell us where this locket came from?”

“Filthy half-blood asks Kreacher about the locket, Kreacher should not tell him….”

“Kreacher. I order you to tell us about this locket and how it got here.” Sirius said.

And then the whole story came out. Voldemort needing a house-elf, Regulus stealing the locket and dying, Kreacher trying to destroy it. Sirius looked shaken by the end of it and Dumbledore just looked intrigued and rather vindicated (probably that his theory of there being more Horcruxes was true).

“We will destroy the locket, Kreacher. You have not failed your master,” Harry told him. Kreacher looked like he might burst into tears at that. Harry turned to the headmaster. “So, what is the locket, sir?”

“Ah, I cannot tell you that, yet, my boy – “

“Pardon me, sir. But I destroyed an object just like that once and I found this one. I think I deserve to know and to help.”

Dumbledore looked old and exhausted when Harry said this, clearly not used to a confident and calm Harry Potter. “I only have guesses, Harry….”

“So, tell us your guesses, Headmaster,” interrupted Sirius.

The Headmaster just gazed sadly at the locket, before looking up and meeting their eyes, “I think that Tom made Horcruxes – that he split his soul into different containers – and that this locket is one of them.”

Sirius looked vaguely ill and Harry sat down heavily on one of the dusty chaise lounges and tried to look shocked. “I killed one of them, didn’t I? The diary?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“So, how many did he make?” Sirius added in.

“I am unsure…I have a few ideas of what objects could have been used but I do not know how many were made,” Dumbledore said.

“Have you been looking for them?” Harry asked.

Dumbledore hesitated, “When I have the time,” he hedged.

Harry snorted. “Pardon me, sir, but why don’t you have a task force for these objects? You could have people in the Order that you trust look for them.”

The Headmaster looked bewildered at this idea since delegation was not his usual approach, “This…is very dark magic…I don’t want - “

“Sir. You could have a trusted group of people hunting these down. Bill Weasley is a curse breaker, Remus is wasting his considerable intelligence on werewolves who are a lost cause, Tonks can get into anywhere…all of them would be willing to take on this task.” Harry said passionately.

In a rare show of casualness, Dumbledore took off his half-moon glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You are right, Harry. I should have thought of that…I will work on gathering a group.”

“I’d like to be included in the group, sir.”

“I as well, Albus,” Sirius said.

Dumbledore just sighed and nodded. “I will take the locket back to my office and work on destroying it,” he said.

“I used a basilisk fang last time, Headmaster. We could enter the chamber and get more…” Harry said.

“You may be onto something, Harry. Let me think about it and perhaps soon we can enter the chamber together. I will see you all at the meeting tomorrow night.”

After the Professor walked out of the room less jovially than he entered, Sirius and Harry sat in silence for a while, both considering the large fight they had ahead of them.

Xxx

The next morning Harry handed a letter to Tonks for her to take into work with her.

_Madame Bones,_

_I am writing to ask for your assistance in a personal matter. I am contacting you through my friend, Nymphadora Tonks, whom I met when she was a seventh-year student and I a first year. She has agreed to give you this message. I am afraid my mail is being watched by several interested parties and I do not wish to endanger my owl further, so I hope you will forgive me for the cloak and dagger delivery method._

_My godfather, Sirius Black, is being hunted by the Ministry as an escaped convict. Unfortunately, he was never convicted so this is unlawful and that is why am I writing. You see, I have reason to believe my godfather is innocent. This June, during the last task of the tournament, I was witness to an event that involved the deceased Peter Pettigrew, who looked decidedly alive. I am sending my memory of the event in a vial in the package that Tonks should have given you. I would request that you watch the memory and proceed how you see fit. I will be at the Ministry on the Aug. 12 th for my hearing and would appreciate an audience with you afterward if you are amenable._

_I appreciate you taking the time to read my letter._

_Sincerely,_

_Harry James Potter_


	6. Chapter 6

That day was also filled with cleaning, like the day before. Harry had started sneaking away books and heirlooms last night and storing them in his room, which he planned on continuing today. He may not _enjoy_ the topics of some of the books, but they could come in handy fighting Voldemort. He spent the day joking around with the twins and Sirius. He was civil to Ron and Hermione, but he did not actively search them out (or antagonize them for that matter). The day was mildly uneventful until the Order meeting that night. The members of the household ate dinner together first until Molly shooed her kids out of the room when people began arriving.

“Alright children, up you get!” she said. They all moaned about not being included but were eventually pushed out of the kitchen. When Mrs. Weasley turned to face Harry he just stared back, daring her to try to kick him out. She huffed and turned back to cleaning the dishes and setting out tea for the meeting.

Tonks stumbled into the kitchen, her shoulder catching the doorframe on the way in. “Wotcher, Harry!” she said, smiling at him, hair bright pink.

“Hey, Tonks, you pass on that letter for me?” Harry asked.

“Yep. Madame Bones was right confused about it, but she took it!”

“Thanks, Tonks,” Harry said with a genuine smile. Tonks gave him a jaunty salute and took a seat across from Harry. Harry had decided to sit near the end of the table this time, again between Padfoot and Moony. When Snape swept into the room, he sneered at Harry being near his usual dark corner but went to take his place anyway.

Once the Headmaster was sat at the other end of the table, he called the meeting to order with a magical gavel bang on the wood table. All of the members stopped talking and turned to face the Headmaster.

“Good evening, everyone,” Dumbledore said with a pleasant little smile, “I’d like to go through everyone’s updates first. Would you like to start Kingsley?”

Shacklebolt nodded, “I derailed a few Aurors on their search for Sirius today. Told them I got a tip he was seen in Tibet and Fudge was all too happy to send a few men that way. Amelia Bones isn’t happy right now; Fudge pushed another bill through the Wizengamot yesterday to decrease our budget. We can’t hire any new Aurors now and we’re going to be really bare-bones when You-Know-Who comes out in the open.”

There was a grim silence after Kingsley finished speaking, and Tonks cut in, “I’m still close to a bunch of the trainees that are in the academy right now. They said the incoming class of Aurors is one of the smallest there’s been in centuries.”

Dumbledore looked grave at this news but nodded his head for the updates to continue.

Bill Weasley spoke next, “The goblins definitely know that Voldemort is back but the most we can hope for with them is explicit neutrality. They don’t care who comes to get the money, as long as they don’t steal from them. I’ve started working with Fleur Delacour and I believe we could count on her help if we extended an invitation to join the Order. It could be useful to have contacts on the continent besides Charlie.”

“How likely is it that she would join? We cannot risk inviting someone who will expose us,” Dumbledore said, looking concerned.

Harry decided to pipe in, “Fleur is loyal to me since I saved her sister last year. I think if you mentioned my name she would join.”

Snape snorted from his dark corner, muttering something about his arrogance. Harry just stared back at him blankly.

“Well. Anyone else have anything to add tonight?” said the Headmaster.

“I have an…odd thing to mention,” Professor Snape said, removing himself slightly from his corner and standing with his hands clasped behind him.

“Yes, Severus?”

“A few days ago, apparently…when Potter was attacked by Dementors…the Dark Lord developed...a nose,” he drawled.

_Oh my god did my Horcrux go back to his body and give him a nose?! Oh god, what if he’s saner now?! Oh Merlin, alright, Harry, calm down. But why didn’t this happen before?! Okay, this is not the place to freak out we can think about this later._ Harry reined in his mind’s floundering and unclenched his hands from where his nails had bitten half-moons into his palms. He took a deep breath and refocused on the meeting.

A few people snorted, but most just looked bewildered at this development. Dumbledore especially looked like he wasn’t sure what to make of it. At least that’s what Harry assumed he thought from the raised fluffy eyebrows.

“Do you know why Severus?” he asked.

Snape shook his head slightly, “No, I have no idea Headmaster. None of the other Death Eaters know either.”

“Hm, well that is most intriguing…”

A few more people gave updates during the meeting after this revelation. When the Headmaster dismissed them, Harry noticed that a few people stayed behind. Dumbledore must have contacted the people he wanted for his task force – Harry was left feeling mildly impressed that the Headmaster had actually listened to his ideas. When the other members walked out, they were left with just a few people sitting at the table (Dumbledore had to personally ask Molly Weasley to vacate the premises). In addition to Harry and the Headmaster, the table held Snape, Bill, Sirius, Remus, and Moody.

Professor Dumbledore stood and pulled out the Elder Wand, which he used to cast wards around the room, layering silencing and privacy spells together. Everyone but Sirius and Harry looked surprised at this but kept silent until he sat back down.

“Alright Albus, what is this about?” asked Moody, eye spinning in his socket.

“The task I am about to impart to all of you is not one for the faint of heart. It must be undertaken with the utmost secrecy and discretion. You can tell _no one_ of the task and only discuss it with the other members of this group,” Dumbledore said, face serious behind his bushy beard.

“Why is the boy here then, Albus?” sneered Snape while he eyed Harry.

“Harry already knows what this is about. It was his idea to create this task force for this mission. He has earned a place here.”

Snape looked annoyed but acquiesced quickly, probably curious about what the Headmaster was going to entrust to them.

Dumbledore pulled out the locket from the pocket of his voluminous robes and set it on the table. Harry leaned away from the object, not wanting to feel the slimy magic that emanated from its core. Next to the locket, Dumbledore set down the destroyed journal from second year.

“Would you mind telling everyone about these objects, my boy?” asked Dumbledore with his eyes on Harry.

Harry was surprised that he was being given this job but nodded his head quickly. “The diary is from my second year. It was possessing Ginny Weasley and contained what was said to be a memory of Voldemort. I destroyed it with a basilisk fang after I killed the snake. The locket I found in the drawing-room here. I gave it to the Professor because it had the same feel of magic that the journal did.”

Pretty much every member of the group looked stupefied, except Dumbledore. Moody was the first to break the silence.

“Lad, do you mean to say that you KILLED a basilisk?”

Harry was confused so he looked at the Headmaster, “I thought everyone knew about this?”

“Ah, my boy, everyone knew something happened with you and Slytherin’s monster and that you saved Ginny Weasley, but that is all.”

Harry just stared at the senile old man blankly for a moment before he bent his neck back to look at the ceiling and prayed for patience, “Yes, I killed the giant basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. But that doesn’t really matter right now, what matters is these _objects_ ,” Harry said with disdain, looking meaningfully at the Headmaster.

“Yes, my boy, quite right. These objects contain or contained pieces of the soul of Lord Voldemort,” Dumbledore said grimly.

Bill, Remus, and Snape paled quite rapidly at this news, all of them looking vaguely green at this new development. Moody just growled.

“He split his soul twice?” asked Bill faintly.

“I believe he did so more than twice, but I am unsure how many times. I think we cannot afford to underestimate Tom,” said the Headmaster.

Moody grunted and poked the diary with his wand, “What do ya need us to do, Albus?”

“I want the six of you to work with me to find and destroy these objects, called Horcruxes. Voldemort cannot die with these tethering him to life. All of you bring unique skills to this group and I hope that you can all work together to do this,” he replied, looking over his glasses at all of them.

“Do you have any leads?” asked Remus.

“I do. Remus, I would like for you and Sirius to start researching in the Black Library here. Look for anything you can find on Horcruxes, soul magic, and curses. Bill I’d like you to research as well, using your curse-breaking connections. I am going to gather some information on my leads, and we will meet again after Mr. Potter’s trial in a few days to discuss further. I hope I do not need to tell you all how this must be treated with the utmost secrecy. Absolutely no one can know about this. No one.”

They all nodded, each trying to grasp the enormity and hopelessness of the task that faced them. Eventually, everyone left the meeting who was not staying at Grimmauld and Harry could make his way upstairs to Regulus’s room. He laid down fully clothed on the bed and then let himself panic a bit.

Why did Voldemort gain a nose? Did the Horcrux from him return to Voldemort when he came back to this time? Why didn’t this happen before? What if when they destroyed Horcruxes now they made Voldemort saner? Harry didn’t think he could defeat a sane Voldemort. Perhaps because Harry’s piece was so small it could return to its original being more easily and now the others could as well. It was infuriating that this was all speculation and Harry couldn’t know for sure. He had to wait until they destroyed another before he even knew if it would return to Voldemort again. Harry fell asleep with throat clogging anxiety and slept fitfully with dreams of a young Tom Riddle haunting him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the dialogue from this chapter was taken directly from OOtP but I tried to limit that as much as possible - there's just not much leeway with a legal hearing and it's wording.

The next few days were spent cleaning the house and researching with Sirius and Remus in the library. The books that the Black family had on soul magic were a class of their own. Some of them were so dark, Harry could feel the grimy abrasiveness of black magic on their covers. Others talked about soulmates and destiny and soul-bonding, which were topics not particularly helpful to the research of soul splitting.

In between the research and cleaning, Harry worried about Voldemort. He could not gauge Voldemort’s emotions since he no longer had a piece of his soul in his head, so he was unsure if his emotions were different from before. He worried incessantly that the Dark Lord had regained his horcrux and would be even more difficult to kill now. Harry spent every day with a ball of dread permanently in his stomach. The rest of the household believed his anxious features and jumpy tendencies to be side effects of the upcoming hearing, and Harry let them think what they wanted. How could he ever explain the terror he felt at a more competent Tom Riddle?

During dinner on Wednesday, Mrs. Weasley told him she had ironed his best clothes for tomorrow, just like last time. However, this time Harry did not appreciate it as much.

“Thank you, Mrs. Weasley, but I am actually going to use some of Regulus’s old robes tomorrow,” he said, politely, glancing up from his plate.

The red-haired woman looked shocked, “But Harry, wouldn’t you feel better wearing your own clothes? You’ve never worn wizard clothes before.”

Harry stamped down the irritation that bubbled up in him when she tried to sway him, “I would not want to further offend the wizards who are in charge of determining whether I broke the Statute of Secrecy by wearing muggle clothing. I have to make a good impression in whatever way I can since the Daily Prophet is trying to drag the Potter name through the mud.”

Sirius and Remus were looking at Harry now with raised eyebrows. They exchanged a look between the two of them and had a whole conversation without speaking. _Rather like the twins_ , Harry thought.

“That’s a good idea, pup,” Sirius said, turning back to him, “those stuffy old witches and wizards will be more receptive if you wear robes. I’ll help you pick some out after dinner.”

Harry smiled at his godfather, warmth curling through his body when he defended him to Mrs. Weasley, “Thanks Padfoot.”

Mrs. Weasley huffed but thankfully let the subject go for the rest of dinner. After everyone was done eating, Harry followed Sirius and Remus upstairs to Regulus’s room. When they got there, Remus sat on the desk chair and Sirius bounded over to the wardrobe.

“Alright, so. You want to look like a nice young wizard who is definitely not insane at all – don’t laugh, Moony! – but not like they can walk all over you. Now, Regulus wore a lot of black and dark blues and greens. The dark blues are quite popular for my family since it is supposed to represent the night sky and our star names and all that rubbish. The Potters don’t really have official colors but those that have been on the Wizengamot or who hold important Ministry positions tend towards dark reds and blacks. You don’t need to wear full robes, though,” said Sirius, still digging through the closet.

Remus jumped in when Sirius trailed off, “Wizards are slower to have fashion changes than Muggles, so formal business wear is still rather similar to the late 1800s or early 1900s in the muggle world. What you really need is a black frock coat – maybe grey waistcoat and pants? You don’t want to stand out too much and you want to look serious.”

“Hello, did you call my name?” Sirius asked, ducking his head out behind the doors of the wardrobe.

Remus rolled his eyes fondly and Harry wondered how he never knew they were a couple before. “Thank you Padfoot that joke was so new and unique – now, maybe a dark red bow tie too?”

Sirius grumbled but went back to digging – _did that closet have an undetectable extension charm on it?_ – finally coming up with items that matched Moony’s descriptions. “Here, try these on,” he said, piling each garment into Harrys’ open arms and staring at him expectantly.

“Wha – now? While you’re here?” Harry stuttered out, feeling the tips of his ears turn a bit pink.

Remus rolled his eyes at his partner and dragged him out of the room, “We’ll be right outside, Harry, call us when you have everything on.”

Once his honorary uncles had left the room, Harry set his new outfit down on the bed. He dressed himself in the borrowed clothing, adding in a white oxford shirt from his own collection. His fingers fumbled with the bow tie for a bit – it had been a year since Bill and Fleur’s wedding, and he hadn’t had much opportunity to dress up on his camping trip from hell – but he managed to make a passable bow.

“You can come in now,” he called out. The two marauders came back into the room, both of them freezing when they saw him.

“What, does it not look okay?” Harry asked worriedly.

The werewolf cleared his throat and walked further into the room, a stunned Sirius trailing behind him. “No, Harry, you just look so grown up.” Remus’s eyes were suspiciously wet as he reached out to fix the bow tie at Harry’s neck. Harry felt himself flush a bit and darted his eyes embarrassedly around the room before his gaze landed on Sirius.

“You remind me of my brother, actually, sorry pup, I was just a little thrown. But Moony is right, your parents would have been in tears over how adult you look now.”

Harry’s smile was a bit wobbly after that statement, but he managed to say a hoarse, “Thanks, Sirius.”

After their emotional moment, Sirius and Remus used a few tailoring spells to make sure the clothing fit him. After they left, Harry took the garments off before laying down on his bed. Even though he knew he had been acquitted last time, he couldn’t help but worry that he would inadvertently cause his own expulsion the next day. He finally fell asleep late at night, only to be awakened very early by Mrs. Weasley telling him to get up and get ready.

Harry dragged himself out of the comfortable cocoon of blankets and performed his morning ablutions. He dressed in his proper young wizard outfit before going down to the kitchen to eat something beforehand. The Weasley parents were sitting at the table with Remus, Sirius, and Tonks and all of them looked up when they walked in. Tonks actually whistled.

“Wotcher, Harry! Don’t you look dapper,” she said with a wink.

Harry laughed, some of the tension uncurling from his stomach at her lighthearted attitude. “Morning, Tonks,” he said as he slid into a seat across from her. The Weasley matriarch plied him with toast and marmalade which he dutifully ate. He let Mrs. Weasley try to flatten his hair, though he knew it would not cooperate.

The rest of the next hour or so went rather the same as before – Harry and Mr. Weasley walked to the train and rode towards the visitor’s entrance of the Ministry. Harry couldn’t think of a reason to go directly down to the courtroom, so he let himself be ushered to the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office. He waited until Perkins came running in again, stuttering about a change in location and time for the hearing. Harry and Arthur then made a mad dash for the lifts and made their way down to the Department of Mysteries.

When the lifts dinged on that floor, Mr. Weasley had to drag Harry towards the court rooms because Harry had frozen in the lift openings. His breath had caught in his throat at the sight of the black door at the end of the hallway. He let the red-haired man guide him towards his hearing as he struggled to get his panic under control. Finally, they got to the courtroom and Mr. Weasley nudged him towards the doors. Harry took a deep breath and stepped inside.

The benches rose up before him, made to intimidate criminals with their height and their presence against dark stone walls. Harry squared his shoulders and tried to find a balance between Lucius-Malfoy-arrogance and Albus-Dumbledore-benevolence as he glided as smoothly as he could towards the chained chair in the middle of the room. He was tempted to conjure his own chair like Dumbledore had before, but it did not seem like an appropriate move during a trial for underage sorcery.

Fudge’s loud voice boomed in the courtroom, “You’re late,” he said with all the presence of a croaking bullfrog.

“I apologize,” Harry said calmly, “I was not notified there would be a time and location change for my hearing.”

“That is not the Wizengamot’s fault,” said the Minister. “An owl was sent to you this morning. Take your seat.”

“Well, by happy coincidence, I was already present three hours early,” Harry said with a little smile on his lips. He looked at the witches and wizards above him, about fifty of them in all in their plum colored Wizengamot robes. Harry wondered idly if Tonks was a member how she would match her hair to the robes.

In the middle of the front row sat Cornelius Fudge, looking every inch the pompous nitwit that he was. Harry tried not to let his face twitch into an uncharacteristically condescending sneer at him. He inclined his head politely to Amelia Bones on the Minister’s left, who returned the gesture.

“Very well,” said Fudge. “The accused being present — finally — let us begin. Are you ready?” he called down the row.

“Yes, sir,” said Percy Weasley. He gave off the vague impression of Hermione in her first potions class. All trembling excitement like a new puppy.

“Disciplinary hearing of the twelfth of August,” said Fudge, “into offenses committed under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Statute of Secrecy by Harry James Potter, resident at number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. “Interrogators: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister of Magic; Amelia Susan Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. Court Scribe, Percy Ignatius Weasley —”

“— Witness for the defense, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,” said a voice behind Harry. The boy-who-lived closed his eyes briefly in annoyance. He was so thankful last time for Dumbledore’s help and guidance, but it may have done more harm than good – the Headmaster had just been removed as Chief Warlock and was not held in high esteem in this governing body. The witches and wizards muttered among themselves at Dumbledore’s entrance. He came to a stop next to Harry and held his hands behind his back serenely as he surveyed Fudge. The two men had the same exchange as last time, resulting in the Headmaster conjuring his squashy armchair. 

“Yes,” Fudge blustered. “Well, then. So. The charges. Yes.” He extricated a piece of parchment from the pile before him, took a deep breath, and read, “The charges against the accused are as follows: That he did knowingly, deliberately, and in full awareness of the illegality of his actions, having received a previous written warning from the Ministry of Magic on a similar charge, produce a Patronus Charm in a Muggle-inhabited area, in the presence of a Muggle, on August the second at twenty-three minutes past nine, which constitutes an offense under paragraph C of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, and also under section thirteen of the International Confederation of Wizards’ Statute of Secrecy.

“You are Harry James Potter, of number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey?”

“Yes.”

“You received an official warning from the Ministry for using illegal magic three years ago, did you not?”

“No.”

“And yet yo-,” Fudge paused in his questioning and glared at Harry over the top of his papers, “you didn’t receive a warning? Don’t lie boy.”

“Yes, I received a warning, however it was erroneous. I did not perform magic then,” Harry replied, “it was a house-elf.”

“A house-elf!” exclaimed Fudge, “how convenient! Why would there be one of those in a muggle house?”

“He had come to visit me, sir,” Harry said politely, still with his small smile, “I can call him here if you’d like.”

“That’s not – we don’t have time for house-elves! We’re talking about your breach of the Statute of Secrecy!” Fudge all but yelled.

“Of course, Minister,” Harry said agreeably, “I’m sure the first warning was just an administrative mistake.”

“You conjured a Patronus on the night of the second of August?” said Fudge, trying to move on.

“Yes.”

“Knowing that you are not permitted to use magic outside school while you are under the age of seventeen?”

“Yes.”

“Knowing that you were in an area full of Muggles?”

“Yes.”

“Fully aware that you were in close proximity to a Muggle at the time?

“My muggle cousin who has known about magic for several years now, yes,” said Harry politely.

And just like last time, Amelia Bones questioned him on his corporeal patronus which he happily chatted about with her, seeing Fudge getting more and more red out of the corner of his eye.

“It’s not a question of how impressive the magic was,” he said, “In fact, the more impressive the worse it is, I would have thought, given that the boy did it in plain view of a Muggle!”

“Well yes, normally, I would never break the law like that Minister, but there were dementors you see, and I did not want to be Kissed with my muggle cousin,” Harry interjected.

Again, Fudge blustered about, and Arabella Figg was called and questioned. Harry let it happen the same as before, seeing as the Wizengamot believed him the first time.

Harry tuned back in when Dumbledore spoke, “Oh, I don’t think any of us believe the dementors were there by coincidence.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” asked Fudge, as red faced as an angry Uncle Vernon.

“It means that I think they were ordered there,” said Dumbledore.

“I think we might have a record of it if someone had ordered a pair of dementors to go strolling through Little Whinging!” barked Fudge.

Harry interrupted again before Dumbledore could hint at Voldemort and lose their credibility again, “Of course, Minister, that’s why I’m sure you will be doing a full investigation into these events.” Harry finished his sentence with a little sanctimonious nod. This interjection had the effect of stopping Umbridge from interceding and inflicting them all with her terrible voice.

“We are here to examine Harry Potter’s offenses under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery!” yelled Fudge.

“Of course, we are,” said Dumbledore, “but the presence of dementors in that alleyway is highly relevant. Clause seven of the Decree states that magic may be used before Muggles in exceptional circumstances, and as those exceptional circumstances include situations that threaten the life of the wizard or witch himself, or witches, wizards, or Muggles present at the time of the —”

“We are familiar with clause seven, thank you very much!” snarled Fudge.

The rest of the trial continued as before (minus more questioning about Dobby) and Harry was eventually acquitted of all charges. As Harry stood from his criminal chair, he made eye contact with Madam Bones who nodded at him and made her way across the court room. Harry steadied himself and braced himself for his next political endeavor. _Fighting a war didn’t prepare me for this_ , he thought.


	8. Chapter 8

Harry fell in-step with Madame Bones as they left the courtroom, hastening to keep up with her shorter but no-less intimidating form. Her hair was grey and cropped short, accentuating her square jaw. The monocle must have been held in place by magic since it never seemed to so much as quiver from its position. They made pleasant small talk with each other as they made their way back to level two and into her office. Harry saw Lucius Malfoy like he did last time, but the aristocrat did not dare to insinuate things in front of Amelia Bones – he just sneered like the petulant man he was.

Once they were both seated, with Harry sitting in front of her desk, she slid out a wooden slab from under the top of the desk that was absolutely covered in runes. Harry wanted to kick himself once again for signing up for tea-leaf-reading with Trelawney and promised himself he would keep studying as he did in the tent. The Head of the DMLE tapped the central rune with her wand, causing the whole wooden sheath to glow – the glow then spread throughout the rest of the office, racing over the carpeted floor and crawling up the walls. Harry felt the magic wash over him as it rushed towards the door.

Madame Bones saw Harry watching her curiously and said, “In-built silencing and protective charms for the office.”

Harry nodded, “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me today, Madame Bones.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him, “Well I could hardly say no when I got sent such an intriguing letter.”

“Did you watch the memory?” Harry asked, trying desperately not to fidget.

Her mouth set in a tight line that rivalled McGonagall’s disapproving frown she seemed to reserve for Potters, “I did. Fortunately, the law allows memories to be used as evidence when the wizard is over 14 years of age. I have opened a case into the events of last June and have made changes to Black’s case, accordingly.”

“That’s brilliant.”

“Yes. Quite. However, I do not want you to get your hopes up prematurely. There are a lot of hoops to jump through since the Minister is being rather…obstinate at the moment,” she said with a grim look.

Harry grimaced and nodded, “I understand. Thank you, Madame Bones. As long as the Aurors are aware of the events of last June and are looking into it, it will allow Magical Britain to be more prepared for what is coming.”

“Did you notice Peter Pettigrew in the memory, ma’am?”

“I did, however there is no way to verify it is him. The best I can do is add it to Sirius Black’s file and try to rescind the kiss-on-sight order. However, the minister will not be likely to believe this memory even if he sees it with his own eyes,” she warned him.

“I understand Madam Bones. I was hoping – that you could – maybe prepare the department on your own,” Harry said, trying to appear confident and not like he was suggesting she exploit the grey areas of ministerial law.

“I will take it under advisement Mr. Potter, thank you.”

Xxx

After the meeting, Harry went to Mr. Weasley’s office further down the hallway of level two, and together they made their way back to Grimmauld Place.

The evening was pleasant, and Harry allowed himself a night of carefree fun with the Order members who came for dinner while they celebrated his escape from expulsion. Every time Fred or George would slip someone a sweet that changed their hair color or something else, Tonks would mimic it, complete with the victim’s expression of surprise and anger, and Harry and her would dissolve into laughter at the end of the table.

Harry was unpleasantly awoken around 8 am by Sirius.

“HARRY! Wake-up! Dumbledore is downstairs, he says it’s urgent!”

Harry shot out of bed, shocking Sirius. His wand was ready in his hand, though everything was blurry without his glasses. He gathered himself quickly however – dressing and following Sirius downstairs.

When he got to the kitchen, what looked like Dumbledore’s inner circle of the order were there. Harry warily took a seat between Moody and Sirius (no-one wanted to sit next to that creepy swirling eye that early in the morning). He didn’t remember an emergency meeting being called last time around and a swoop of dread flew through his stomach.

Dumbledore stood at the end of the long kitchen table looking particularly grim. He tapped his fingers on the wood and the quiet murmuring settled.

“I have called you all here to say that the guard duty for the Department of Mysteries is no longer necessary. The object we were protecting is gone.”

_Well fuck_ , harry thought as the table erupted into conversation around him. _Oh fuck, what have I done? I’ve made everything worse by coming back oh no._

While Harry was having a minor crisis, the rest of the Order were fearful and questioning the Headmaster – especially the members who knew that they were guarding a prophecy (really just Snape).

“Albus, I thought you said it was vital that Voldemort not get this object – that it would be a weapon in his hands?” asked Mrs. Weasley, wringing her hands in front of her. The other Order members turned to face the Headmaster as they waited for his response.

“It may be Molly. I do not know how Tom managed to get his hands on this particular object.”

“Who was on guard duty last night?” Sirius asked.

“Ah – well, Mundungus – “

“FLETCHER?!” Harry stood and slammed his hands on the table, completely forgetting his new and calm personality, “The same man who abandoned his post and let me be attacked by dementors?” Also, the same man who fell asleep and let Harry wander off onto an extended shopping trip, but he wasn’t going to mention _that_. “Why was he even still on the guard rotation? Where is he now?”

“In St. Mungos. Nymphadora -” Tonk’s left eye twitched in annoyance,”- found him when she went to replace him this morning. He was lying on the ground, unconscious and barely breathing from snake venom.”

Harry immediately felt rather guilty for assuming Dung had abandoned his post again, however warranted the suspicion had been. Apparently, Nagini had attacked again, only much earlier this time. Harry also felt rather disgusted at himself for being grateful it was someone else instead of the kind Arthur Weasley this time.

“But how could You-Know-Who walk into the DoM?” asked Molly Weasley.

“He isn’t exactly an inconspicuous bugger,” Sirius muttered. Remus snorted from his other side.

“How do we know it wasn’t one of his minions?” Harry interjected.

Dumbledore sighed, “This object could only have been removed by two people, one of whom definitely did not do so, and the other is Tom.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Harry asked, trying to circumvent the Headmaster’s compulsive secret hoarding. His mind was still reeling at this change in events – he thought he would be able to make things better by coming back in time (not that it was really much of a choice in that creepy King’s Cross). Instead, he had created a more dangerous enemy apparently. The guilt was suffocating.

The Headmaster hesitated slightly before saying, “I do not think it is information I should share with more people than need to know.”

Harry barely suppressed an eye twitch at that. Was he really not going to tell Harry about the prophecy? Did he still not trust him? Harry was afraid of pushing for more information and making the Headmaster suspicious of him.

“What do we do now, Albus?” asked Remus.

“For now, we end the guard rotation, and we stay vigilant. Continue with your other assignments. We have to hope that this object will keep him occupied for a while.”

When the other members started getting up to go to their jobs, Harry escaped upstairs to his room, where he locked the door, threw himself onto the bed, and screamed into a pillow. He felt tears of frustration threaten to leak out of his eyes and he tried to force himself to breathe deeply. What had he _done?!_ He needed to be extremely cautious with how he proceeded from here on out. Making more changes could cause the timeline to change drastically and he wouldn’t be able to predict what would happen anymore. He had been so hopeful when he realized he had gone back in time but now he wondered if this was all a horrible curse.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So first of all, I think I forgot to say in the beginning but if it is not obvious – I am American and this has not been Brit-picked – I fix the things I catch but I am by no means an expert!

After about an hour of feeling sorry for himself, Harry dragged himself to a sitting position against the headboard of the bed. The wood of the board was intricately carved with constellations and he let his fingers dip along the grooves, wondering if Regulus had ever done the same. His other hand rested on the sheets, which must have been acromantula silk. Harry remembered the scratchy sheets of the tent, listening to Hermione stifle her crying as they both pretended to sleep when Ron left. It was still hard to grasp that he was not in active war at the moment, that he did not have to spend every waking moment on edge and fighting.

He needed to go the library and do more research on time travel tonight when the others were sleeping. Just drifting through events like he had been lately was awfully reminiscent of how he acted the first time around. He did not want to be so controlled by his emotions – so angry like he was in fifth year.

Harry swung his legs off the bed, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. He made his way to the toilet next to his bedroom, where he splashed cold water on his face and took a moment to marvel at his less conspicuous scar on his forehead. He walked back into the gloomy hallway and headed down the stairs towards the library.

By this point of the day, it was mid-morning and Sirius and Remus were already researching. They sat near a slightly grimy window in green velvet wingback chairs, piles of dark books on soul magic on the table between them. When Harry walked in, they were alone in there and he paused on the threshold of the room. He didn’t think that even Remus and Sirius realized how they gravitated towards each other, how their hands subconsciously brushed each other’s when reaching for a teacup or another book. Harry felt his lips twitch up at the sides at this show of cozy domesticity, before he pushed himself off the door hinge he had been leaning on to sit with the remaining marauders.

“Hello,” he said, hesitant to break up their moment. He needn’t have worried, since Sirius’s face lit up when Harry moved into his line of vision.

“Hey kid, where’d you wander off to?” Sirius asked.

“Ah, sorry, I didn’t sleep much last night, I wanted to catch another hour before researching.”

Remus still looked slightly suspicious of this (rightly so, because Harry had blasted out of the meeting like a wild hippogriff was chasing him) but accepted the reasoning easily enough. 

“Did you find anything this morning?” Harry questioned, serving himself tea from the pot that Remus perpetually kept with him in the library.

“Well...we found something,” Sirius said. “How much do you know about magical weddings?”

Considering Harry had only been to Bill and Fleur’s - an event that was severely overshadowed by the fall of the ministry - he didn’t know much. “Not much, why?”

“So, in magical ceremonies the bride and groom exchange magic - for lack of a better term. Your magic is tied together like how you would be tethered by an unbreakable vow. It is painful and risky to break a marriage vow, depending on the terms used. There was a woman - Carina Black - in the 1600s who wanted to go even deeper than the magical bond - she wanted to connect her husband to her soul. Now soul magic has always been rather taboo because it’s so dangerous, so even then this was kind of a crazy idea. She tried to create her own bonding ritual but ended up splitting her soul and putting some into her marriage ring. The book I read this in said that she was able to reunite her soul,” Sirius said.

“That’s brilliant! If we could reunite all of Voldemort’s pieces, we could kill him all at once!” Harry enthused.

“Yes, however...we don’t know how she did it. We just know that she did do it,” interjected Remus before Harry got too excited.

“Ah, I see. Well at least we know it’s possible, right? Do you think there’s a book that says how she did it somewhere?” Harry asked.

“I don’t know. She was a Black and this is from a family grimoire that’s more of a history text than a spell guide,” Sirius grimaced.

Harry considered this, idly stirring his tea with a spoon. There had to be a way to figure out how she did it. Maybe a portrait? Harry repeated this question aloud.

Sirius looked thoughtful, “Maybe. There are portraits all over this house - the basement, the attic, the drawing rooms. There are even more in Gringotts I would imagine. It’s worth a try.”

“I can ask around the ones here,” Harry volunteered. “You guys should join Fred and George in their bedroom today. I talked to them last night and they had some ideas they wanted your input on.”

Sirius practically bounced out of his chair and out of the room at this news, pulling Remus along who looked bemused and shouted a goodbye to Harry from across the room.

Harry smiled before heaving himself out of his seat. He decided to start his search for Carina in the basement, so he headed down the stairs towards the kitchen. He knew there was a door to a deeper basement through there, but he had never gone through it - it seemed too creepy.

Luckily no one was in the kitchen when he got there, so he didn’t have to think of an excuse for why he was heading though the door to what could potentially be a creepy dungeon used for torture (and possibly sex, the kinky buggers that they undoubtedly were) by the Blacks.

The door was unsurprisingly locked when Harry grasped the metal doorknob. He groaned slightly in annoyance – that most likely meant he had to wait for Sirius to come open it with his black blood. Harry turned and headed back into the main house, trying to decide between cleaning, research or homework. The decision was made for him when he heard a series of muffled bangs from the twins’ room.

Harry knocked on the door, which was cracked open by Fred, whose eyes lit up with manic glee when he saw Harry.

“’Ello! George! It’s our boss!” he yelled into the room behind him, before fisting Harry’s shirt and hauling him into the room. Inside, Remus was sitting in a hard wooden chair while George and Sirius stood at a window covered in some sort of green powder.

Harry snorted and asked, “What are you guys working on?”

“Look here, Harry!” George said after he wiped green from his eyes. “We’re improving our fireworks and trying to adjust them to mimic killing curse colors and beams. We figured it would really freak out the death eaters if we could make them think killing curses are shooting at them!”

“That’s brilliant!”

“That’s not all!” Sirius added in. “These two have created telescopes that will punch you in the face. We want to create other objects that will do the same thing and send them to death eaters!”

And on and on it went. The two marauders with the demon twins were an unstoppable and frankly terrifying force and Harry listened with wide eyes as they detailed their ideas.

Xxx

After everyone was asleep, Harry snuck back down the stairs towards the library. The magic in the townhouse was old, and the candles lit themselves when he entered the room. He felt like a first year sneaking into the restricted section, and for a moment his heart ached at his naivety and optimism when he was eleven. He trailed his fingers lightly over the edges of the nearest bookshelf. He was careful not to touch any of the books themselves for fear they would try to bite his fingers off (you never knew with the Black family).

He paced back through the room until he reached a set of books he had seen earlier, all having to do with temporal magic. He selected one randomly, not knowing where to begin, and retreated to one of the overstuffed chairs that resided in the library.

However, after only a few hours of reading and discarding the books Harry was beginning to spiral into his fifteen-year-old anxiety again. Every book said what he had already known – you cannot travel back in time more than a few hours. Any more than that, the results were gruesome or caused massive instability to the timeline – like Eloise Mintumble aging five centuries after her botched time travel.

So why was he here, almost three full years into his past? Harry knew his situation wasn’t entirely comparable to the literature he had read since he had genuinely _died_ before he traveled backwards but he was still worried. The books he read seemed to make it clear that changes to the timeline could be catastrophic. But that was even assuming that Harry was still in his original timeline. There were just too many unknowns to wrap his head around and he felt increasingly out of his depth. Was he really the best choice to go back in time (not that Harry understood whatever force had sent him here)? And what if the timeline reasserted itself when he made changes? Voldemort had already acquired the prophecy, which suggested that things could change, and not necessarily for the better.

Sure, when Sirius died or when Dumbledore died, Harry had thought about time travel, but it had always seemed like a sure thing that life would improve if he was allowed to change events. Now, that seemed a hopelessly naïve thought. It was not guaranteed that Harry could save lives – he could make things worse by accident. He could make things worse just by being in the wrong train compartment that he wasn’t in before. The possibilities and consequences stretched out endlessly in front of him, the path seeming more shadowed and treacherous than before.

Harry drew his hands through his thick black hair – which was slightly greasy now that he felt it. He hadn’t even noticed because part of him was still living in a tent, hair unwashed and eye bags dark as he poured over Hermione’s book collection. And god he missed his Hermione. He thought he was doing her a favor by keeping her at arm’s length (the fact that she had not tried to reach out to him this summer a convenient excuse), but he didn’t know what to do without his best friend. But this Hermione wasn’t a soldier, hadn’t been tortured, hadn’t starved with him, hadn’t slept wrapped up with him to keep warm when the nights were long and dark, and their trio had been shaved down to two.

As though summoned by his dark and lonely thoughts, he heard a shuffling at the door to the library – and now that Harry looked it was definitely beginning to lighten outside as the sunrise approached – where Hermione stood hesitantly in the doorway. Despite the summer heat outside, the dampness of the old house was obviously felt by the witch as she stood in a long sleeve cotton tee and sweats, her hair swept up into a huge bun on top of her head. She had evidently come to read before the house was up and crowded and loud again but was now unsure of her welcome.

But Harry was tired, and he missed his best friend so instead of distancing himself he said, “Hi Hermione.”

Surprise crossed her face and Harry felt a pang of guilt when he saw the dark circles under her eyes. She had tried to talk to Harry a few times over the last week, but Harry had gently rebuffed every approach.

“Hi Harry,” she said, still standing in the door and tugging on a loose curl that framed her face.

He had moved to a sofa at some point in his stressed out reading, so he inched over to one side while patting the other cushion for Hermione to join him. She came and sat with her back to the other sofa arm and her knees pulled up in front of her as she hugged them to her chest and faced Harry.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Hermione said softly. “I should have made sure you were okay after the tournament.”

Harry sighed and blew air out of his mouth before he responded.

“I’m sorry too, Hermione. I’ve just had a lot going on lately and I needed time to process everything.” He looked to his right and smiled slightly at the witch. “Thank you for apologizing.”

Hermione had such a profound look of relief on her face that Harry regretted pushing her away all over again. He had convinced himself that he had grown apart from her, but it wasn’t true. True, this girl had not stayed with him on the camping trip from hell but there was no question in his mind that she would do so. In that moment, he gave in and allowed himself to fall back into their friendship. He readjusted and Hermione instantly knew what he was getting at, moving to lay her head on his shoulder as they stared into the fire that Harry had lit earlier. They sat this way sometimes in the Gryffindor common room, and the feeling of comfort and safety it provoked washed over Harry and he found his anxious brain quieting a bit. His mind cleared and he wrapped an arm around Hermione’s shoulders, letting the peace settle over the two of them.


End file.
